Jim Mitchell addressed the Association of European Journalists last Friday. Despite a bad back, he was in gung-ho mood about his Committee on Public Accounts, and how it put the fear of God into the high and mighty. He had much to say about too many bad habits adhering to the ships of State and too many out-of-date practices. "Cosy relationships have been allowed to build up to a point where true independence and critical analysis are compromised almost always without realisation by the parties involved." But while it was too early to proclaim it an unqualified success, the DIRT inquiry, he said, showed public cynicism could be abated and public confidence restored.
There were many more weaknesses in the political system now than 20 years ago, Mitchell said. These ill-considered changes were mainly for the convenience of ministers and foremost was the disastrous deterioration in Dail Question Time. Greatest of all was the loss of input and control by the Ceann Comhairle and how the rights of non-officeholders were allowed be whittled away. Intolerable examples included guillotines on discussion, few urgent motions, whips deciding the choice and place of speakers, sittings with less than a handful of deputies, Dail sittings in parallel with committee and parliamentary party meetings and the regular toleration of abridgment of notice for some motions and for time provisions for different stages of bills.
"The Dail should set the tone for the nation, but in abrogating that role it has allowed the tone from the top to be perceived as indifferent and equivocal when it comes to standards. Not surprisingly this equivocation has been imitated in too many areas of national life."